The Fresh Expressions of Church initative of the CofE and Methodists in England

[Ian Mobsby]

There has now been a Fresh Expressions initiative in the Church of England for nearly five years. A number of people involved in Fresh Expressions as Associate Missioners have come from the Emerging Church and Alternative Worship, like myself. I see the Fresh Expressions has helped the more mainstream, but I am intrigued to hear whether people feel it has assisted at.worship & the emerging church in England?

It seems that Fresh Expressions will have objectives and continue for another five years, what feedback would you want the core team to hear?

[Edward Green]

Fresh Expressions is a wonderful label. Whereas 'Alt.Worship' had negative connotations 'Fresh Expressions' legitimizes new ways of doing things. It allows you not only to worship differently, but to build community differently and in new ways.

Where I do have questions is over pioneer ministry. Not that I think it is a bad idea, far from it, but I think the CofE in particular needs to consider the ministry resources it has already in ordained clergy and find ways to release them into missional ministry.

[Mark Berry]

I've never been a great fan of the term "Fresh Expression" - for me it puts too much stress on the "look", the expression of things and "Fresh" has been too often taken as meaning new/novel as opposed to "Fresh" as a sense of being live and organic - the implication being it's about how we do worship, the way we "express" worship and the danger being that Church becomes even more consumerist and attractional, even more about what we do when we gather than it is now... but I applaud the FE crew for what the initiative has achieved in raising the awareness of different styles of community and supporting different approaches to engaging with those outside of mainstream church... and for simply celebrating the great things that are happening beneath the radar!

I think the challenges are for how can we move the agenda from styles of worship and/or location of the gathering to a more radical exploration of contextual theology - missiology and ecclesiology... and specifically in relation to the Pioneer Ministry stream of ordination (which I have big concerns about) how can we have a proper and serious debate on issues of leadership in non-inherited/non-institutional communities (lifelong and individual or seasonal and community ordination (if we even want to keep ordination!), community/lay presidency, prophetic/apostolic/etc. ministry, fluid leadership models, how we do training, etc.)

I guess my biggest fear is that the pioneers and those communities who want to remain in the Anglican communion and yet do have major questions, not just for themselves and communities like them but for the whole Anglican Church, are not actually listened too... that in creating a place for them to do different things they are effectively silenced and their concerns and questions are prevented from impacting or at least being asked in/of the whole church... for example if we are asking "Is individual/personal Ordination the only/best leadership model/praxis in Fresh Expressions?" does it negate us actually asking "Is individual/personal Ordination the only/best leadership model/praxis in the Church?"? Personally I think we need to be asking big questions, urgently about Ordination & training and about the Eucharist (particularly lay/community presidency) for the whole of the Church of England not just for the oddballs on the edge.... just for starters of course ;-)

[Heather Cracknell]

I wholeheartedly agree with what Mark is saying about the pioneer stream of ordination - as I've just started pioneer training this semester on a course that hasn't done pioneer training before, I'm put in a position where I'm needing to be pioneering the training before I can do anything else. I feel that this as a responsibility for opening the way for those who follow after me in this particular training route - I'm seeking to keep bringing the consideration of pioneer training back to what Mark described: "a more radical exploration of contextual theology..."

I feel like the old joke about asking a farmer for directions: "well, I wouldn't start from here...." For me pioneer ministry can only be the starting point to enable a hierachical structure engage with an organic system.